Spontaneity
by Alesford
Summary: Quinn, drunkenly, mused a, "What if you bought an engagement ring to carry around and just happened to meet your soul mate and propose on that same day?" AU. Faberry. Brittana. One-shot. Complete.


**A/N: Happy Valentine's Day-also known as Faberittana Day-folks! The scenario in this story is actually one that's been playing out in my head a lot lately, and with all the Faberry feelings floating around, I wanted to try and write it into a short, Faberry one-shot. It isn't my best work, and it's probably a little choppy, but I wanted it published on Valentine's Day for all of you lovely people. So, please enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: "Glee" is not mine.**

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><p><strong>Spontaneity<strong>

At twenty-three years of age, Quinn Fabray has always sort of thought herself a romantic. She blames it on her father, who, with his own grandiose ideas of love, wooed her mother in love at first sight. Her parents' marriage is a beautiful thing, truly. Three decades later and Quinn can still see the love; her family is lucky that way. If her father hadn't rebelled against his strict Catholic upbringing to marry Judy… well, Quinn figures her life would be very different.

Despite her belief in love, Quinn is hating the day. She's always felt slight cynicism toward the fourteenth day of February; love should be expressed daily and spontaneously, not on the basis of a Hallmark holiday. But for some reason, this year's Valentine's Day really has her blue. She thinks it might be the weight of the ring in her front coat pocket, which was probably the second stupid mistake she's made while drunk (the first was sex without a condom in high school and the third was probably the tattoo at the base of her neck that she got another, less-developed country—even if she kind of loves it and nothing _bad_ actually came of it).

She blames it on her friend from college, who had also been partially responsible for the tattoo. Quinn met Santana Lopez during a semester abroad in Thailand; neither were really sure _why_they had chosen the Asian country with their majors (pre-med for Santana and literature for Quinn) but they were there together. Santana had come from Princeton and Quinn from Yale. They'd stayed close after that, despite being on opposite ends of the country, and when graduation came and went and Quinn was looking at an apartment in Jackson Heights in Queens, it only made sense to call Santana who was sleeping on her cousin's couch in Harlem. Despite their bickering, it was probably one of the healthiest, long-term relationships Quinn had ever formed. That, unfortunately, doesn't mean they still don't do stupid shit when drunk together.

It had happened the weekend before when Santana dragged her to the nearest bar to lament the smoking hot dancer she had briefly met at the coffee shop, whose number she was too awestruck to get. Then, they started talking about love and then love at first sight and somehow wound up talking about marriage. Quinn, drunkenly, mused a 'What if you bought an engagement ring to carry around and just happened to meet your soul mate and propose on that same day?'

In her drunken state, it was surely not that eloquent, but it had been enough to elicit an enabling response from the Latina. The next day, she was two hundred dollars poorer with a massive hangover and a beautiful, if very simple, engagement ring. She wanted to return it right away, but Fate was against her and the Mom and Pop shop was closed for the next week due to vacation. Quinn took it as a sign. Mostly a sign to stop drinking with Santana Lopez.

She sighs at the mug holding the latte she ordered. The barista had drawn a heart in the crema with the milk, and on any other day, she would have beamed and tipped extra well before using Instagram to take a photo to post to Twitter. Instead, she frowns and gives it a stir to swirl away the latte art.

Her phone vibrates on the table beside her book about photojournalists in South Africa during the Hostel Wars. It's Santana. Before she can even say hello, Santana is already talking.

"Snagged last minute tickets from a scalper for West Side Story tonight. Be there at seven."

It's Santana's answer to finding her blonde dancer—see every frigging Broadway show to try and find the girl named Brittany that has made her friend temporarily insane. Quinn goes along with it because she doesn't have much else to do and, hey, free tickets to musicals. She also wants to be sure Santana gets to and from the theaters safely after having already worked twelve-hour shifts at the hospital. It balances out in the end.

The line goes dead before Quinn gets a word in, and it's just as well because she mostly just wants to mope about the ring. She sips at her latte instead, even though she's lost the stomach for it, but it cost almost four dollars and she shouldn't have splurged. She contemplates taking it outside to the homeless man sitting two buildings down, and a moment later, she pushes away from the table and does just that. He looks at her with thankful eyes for the warm drink and Quinn just nods as she walks away and toward the subway.

Just before she starts to descend the stairs into the station, a flap of green awning catches her eye. It's a book shop, and somehow, she's never noticed it until now. The letters painted on the windows are worn and peeling, but just glancing through the window, she knows it's her kind of haven. She turns on her heel and toward the store. A bell gives a strangled ring as she pushes open the door and slips inside, the smell of musk, old books, and Earl Grey wrapping around her like an old and familiar friend.

Books are piled high and stacked haphazardly in every nook and cranny. Behind a short, chipped wooden counter is a balding man with large, round glasses that seem to magnify his eyes to onlookers. His nose is buried in an old text, and he glances up only briefly to look at Quinn. Mutual understanding passes between them in that single look, and he turns his attention back to his book and she turns her hazel eyes to those surrounding her.

She figures she's stumbled into her own private heaven, as she wanders away with words from Thoreau and Emerson and Dickens. Time seems to escape her and before she knows it, the old grandfather clock at the front of the store is chiming six times and the balding man is ushering her from the store while slipping a small, tattered book into her hands to take with her. She doesn't see that it's a collection of love sonnets until the door is closed and latched behind her and she's being shepherded along by the busy evening streets.

The book ends up in her coat pocket, next to the small box holding the damned ring, forgotten as she hops the train into Manhattan to meet up with Santana.

The future doctor is already pacing outside of the theater, nervously twirling a red rose in her hands, and Quinn recognizes the look of determination on the other woman's face. This is the last big show playing on Broadway that they've yet to see, and she knows that Santana might very well break, at last, if the dancer isn't in this one either.

"You're late," Santana snaps.

"No, I'm not," Quinn responds with a raised eyebrow. Santana doesn't respond and just picks at the stem of the flower in hand. "I found a new book shop. New used book shop, anyways."

"I thought you found every one of those asbestos hell-holes in the boroughs already."

Quinn rolls her eyes and doesn't take the bait. Santana is obviously on edge, and the way her eyes keep flickering to the theater entrance, she's itching to get inside. "Do you want to find our seats?" Quinn asks, and before she knows it, her hand is grabbed and she's tugged into the theater, tickets handed over, playbills given, and seated in one of the worst seats in the house. She reminds herself it's a free seat to her, so she can't complain. Beside her, Santana is anxiously scanning the playbill and its cast list.

"Brittany Pierce. That has to be her."

Quinn leans over to look at the printed name. "There's no picture."

"Shut up. She's the only Brittany that's been listed. It's her."

Finally—_finally_—Santana settles back into her seat, contently smug, and Quinn wishes she had that definitive faith in her gut. It is Valentine's Day, after all, and one of them finding love would be better than neither of them. So, Quinn, too, tries to find a comfortable position as she strains her neck to see over the absurdly tall guy sitting in front of her.

And they wait.

Quinn can't breathe when she hears the voice that belongs to Maria. Something inside her twists and turns and her hand, with a mind of its own, seems to grasp at the small velvet box in her coat pocket. She's on the edge of her seat, and by the end of the show, Santana is, too. She was vaguely aware that at one point in the show, the other woman's elbow found her ribcage and a frenzied, "That's her!" was whispered in her ear.

They're both near-sprinting from their seats to get to the back of the theater where the cast is going to exit. Together, they push and shove to the front of the make-shift barricade, and not a minute later, a tall, lithe blonde with the bluest eyes steps out of the door. Nobody except for Santana seems interested in the dancer, but Quinn can see the feeling is mutual and the recognition that plays across Brittany's face is one for the books. She's immediately striding toward them with a smile pulling at her lips.

"You didn't ask for my number, and you left before I could ask for yours," she says, reaching for a folded napkin in her purse that she hands over to Santana. In blue ink, a phone number is scrawled, and Santana tucks it into her pocket like it holds the answers to the universe. "I'm Brittany, if you forgot."

"I don't think I could ever forget you," leaves Santana's mouth, and it's the cheesiest, most horrendous thing Quinn has ever heard the Latina say, and she's heard some pretty bad things.

"You're sweet, but I can't keep calling you 'Coffee-shop-girl-that-won't-forget-me' in my head."

"Santana. Lopez."

"Hi, Santana Lopez." The smiles exchanged between them make Quinn feel like she's intruding on something intensely private, so she averts her gaze as much as she can before her eyes seem to catch on the most beautiful being she's ever seen, and she knows in her gut that the woman two steps away is the one with the voice that had her so enraptured during the show. The moment is so clichéd that Quinn could gag, but their eyes meet and time really does seem to slow, and while Quinn is sure she has read about this phenomenon time and time again in her books, it's really weird to experience it first-hand.

"Oh! Do you want to meet my cast mate?" Brittany's voice chimes, and she beckons to the other girl who is already making her way to them. "This is Rachel Berry. She's like, the total star of the show. Rachel, this is Santana and her friend—"

They're goners already and the world has melted away. It's almost too disgustingly romantic even for Quinn.

"Hi," is all she can manage.

"Hi," Rachel breathes back.

"I'm Quinn. Fabray."

"Rachel Berry."

"Coffee?"

"I like coffee."

"Me too."

And like that, Rachel is slipping around the barricade and into the throngs of people, her hand instinctually finding Quinn's in the crowd, and the two of them disappear away from the disappointed fans and onto the streets of New York. The café they find isn't anything special or independent like Quinn prefers—it's a Starbucks with a thinning group of patrons—but she absolutely cannot find fault as she sits across from this angelic being named Rachel.

She isn't sure what to say, and obviously, neither is Rachel. They both give it a shot at the same time and laugh the nervousness away at their mutual interruption. "You first," Quinn finally says.

"I went to NYADA, studied musical theater, and the city treated me extraordinarily well. Maria is my first lead role in a Broadway production."

"I was a literature major at Yale. I write. I mean, I work at a book store in Midtown, but I'd like to be a published author some day."

Rachel smiles as if she has just uncovered some mysterious and wonderful gem of knowledge, and she tilts her tall soy latte to her lips to hide the grin that has overtaken her features quite suddenly. Quinn smiles back, but she doesn't try to hide it.

"It's Valentine's Day. Do you have any romantic sonnets for me?" Rachel asks before her face contorts and she realizes what she just uttered. "I mean, not that they have to be for me. You just met me." She trips over the words and hides it again with a sip of her coffee.

Quinn wants to say she doesn't really know poetry that well before she remembers the book shop from earlier and the journal of poems the older man had handed her as he pushed her from the store. She fishes the book from her pocket, catching Rachel's attention, who sits up a little straighter in her seat to see what Quinn is retrieving. Her eyes spot the tiny box, and her curiosity is piqued.

"What's that?"

Quinn is embarrassed and forces the ring deeper into her pocket, having finally retrieved the anthology of poems. "It's nothing," she murmurs, shaking her head. She ignores the pang of disappointment that flashes across Rachel's face before flipping to a random page.

It's one of Oscar Wilde's pieces, and before she knows it, she's reciting poetry to this woman she met but minutes ago from a book that a stranger forced into her hands earlier that day. "We shall be notes in that great Symphony/ Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,/ And all the live World's throbbing heart shall be/ One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years/ Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,/ The Universe itself shall be our Immortality!" It isn't Shakespeare, but there's something about Oscar's work that touches her and makes utter sense in the moment. The look Rachel is giving her makes Quinn think the thought is shared, and after a moment of great intensity, they both are forced to look away.

"I apologize—this is going to sound peculiar coming from a stranger that you just happened to meet after a riveting Broadway production of West Side Story, and I know the hour is getting rather late, and I wholeheartedly understand if you've elsewhere to be, but would you like to go ice-skating with me?"

It takes Quinn a second to digest and understand the ramble of a sentence that was just sent her way but her head is nodding before her brain comprehends and the hundred-watt grin Rachel is directing at _her_ is entirely worth it. They grab their paper to-go cups and hail a cab to the Wollman Rink, their bodies thrumming with excitement and _something _indescribable that neither of them really want to try to analyze just yet.

Rachel frowns when she realizes it's past eleven o'clock and the rink is closed for the night. They sit on a nearby bench anyway, and Quinn scoots closer to the small brunette without a second thought. The silence is comfortable and Quinn feels comfortable complacency wash over her like a warm blanket.

"I feel like I know you, Quinn, which is absurd because we've barely said more than one hundred words to each other, probably, but I feel like I know you and yet I don't know you at all. I think I could happily spend the next fifty years trying to get to know you in the way that I feel I already do. Is that strange? Gosh, that's probably a horrific thing to say to somebody you've just met. I'm so sorry."

Quinn quickly puts a gloved hand on Rachel's arm to try to stop the rambling. "No, no. Weirdly enough, I actually understand what you're saying."

"You do?" Rachel's voice sounds like anything but the power and confidence she exuded on stage before hundreds of people earlier that night. Quinn doesn't know what to say to reassure her, so she wraps her hands around Rachel's and draws her forward, lips pressing against lips and all she can think is, _"Oh my God. This is it."_

When she pulls away, Rachel's eyes are closed and the air is fogging into little clouds with each short breath she takes.

"This is going to seem even stranger," Quinn whispers into the night, and Rachel's eyes slowly open as the blonde reaches into her pocket for the ring that has haunted her the last week. "But I bought this ring thinking that one day I could run into my soul mate and I really should be prepared when that happens, and wow, if that kiss didn't solidify every irrational thought flying through my head right now about true love and soul mates and Fate…"

"Quinn, we just met—"

"Rachel, will you marry me?"

She opens the tiny velvet box and holds out the ring and waits for the inevitable rejection as she looks deep into Rachel's eyes that seem to be searching her own for answers. Time stretches between them and Rachel pulls her lower lip between her teeth. Her eyes never leave Quinn's, and slowly, slowly her head begins to move up and down and she reaches for the ring.

It fits perfectly when Quinn slides it onto Rachel's finger with her hands shaking with the absurdity of it all. But it _fits_ and she said _yes_, and damn it all to hell with its craziness.

When Rachel's mouth finds hers a split second later, she doesn't question her insanity one bit because if this is insanity, throw her into the asylum and swallow the key. In her other pocket, her phone vibrates and she answers without looking at the name on the screen.

"Where the hell are you, Fabray?" Santana's voice barks.

"I'm engaged," she says breathlessly. Next to her, she can see Rachel staring in awe at the ring upon her finger and she moves her hand forward, fingers tangling together perfectly.

"Well, fuck a duck, Q—" She hears a comment that sounds a lot like, 'I like ducks,' in the background before she ends the call prematurely and tucks the mobile back into her pocket. She will deal with Santana in the morning, but all she can do is grin dumbly and lovingly at the woman beside her who is smiling a matching goofy smile at her.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Rachel Berry."

"Happy Valentine's Day, Quinn Fabray."


End file.
